Skip to main content

News

Search News

Topics
Date Published Between

For the Media

For media inquiries, call CWA Communications at 202-434-1168 or email comms@cwa-union.org. To read about CWA Members, Leadership or Industries, visit our About page.

A Perceptive Discussion of CWA's Past and a Blueprint for it's Future

From the Telegraph to the Internet is an important book for all who are concerned about the future of the American labor movement. CWA is a major national union which has adapted to changing conditions and maintained its strength at a time when private sector union membership has declined.

CWA’s success is due in part to the nature of the cutting-edge technologies where its membership is concentrated. It represents manufacturing, technical and professional, as well as telecommunications employees. But this is only part of the story because most high-tech workers are not unionized. Rather, the character of CWA is the main reason for its success. That character is reflected in the three remarkable people who have led this organization — Joe Beirne, Glenn Watts and Morty Bahr — all of whom have been very able, energetic leaders dedicated to their union and the labor movement, as well as to all workers and the country.

Because of his courage, integrity and ability, Morty Bahr is one of America’s most respected labor leaders. He has practiced the lifelong learning he preaches for CWA and all Americans. Morty understands that education strengthens the competence, as well as the commitment, of union members and leaders.

Throughout the book, Bahr stresses the importance of the "triple threat" developed by Joe Beirne: collective bargaining, organizing and community and political action. These interrelated concepts reinforce each other and are essential for effective trade unionism.

Under Morty’s leadership, these concepts have been adapted to workplaces being transformed by technology and global competition.

Regardless of conditions, CWA’s simple and profound mission has remained the same: "to make life better for our members and their families, for our communities and for all of society." Collective bargaining is basic to CWA’s mission, but has been adapted to reflect the transformation of companies from oligopolies and regulated monopolies to multinational organizations engaged in global competition.

Bahr emphasizes the need for a combination of tough bargaining and labor-management cooperation in order to enable companies to be profitable and provide employment security for employees. The CWA therefore has pioneered in labor-management cooperation while maintaining a tough bargaining posture.

Organizing also has to adapt to a new, more hostile environment where anti-union employers, aided by labor laws that favor such employers, vigorously resist today’s unions. In this new environment, Bahr stresses the vital need to mobilize members and consolidate unions through mergers as well as to organize the unorganized. Democratic unions strengthen collective bargaining, organizing and community and political action.

Community and political strategies are important, according to Bahr, not only to protect collective bargaining gains and improve community and public benefits for members, but also because "organized labor is a broad economic and social movement." In a more technology-intensive and competitive global economy it is absolutely essential for strong labor movements to be active in community and political affairs — nobody else will resist low-wage economic policies and promote high value added, high wage strategies and economic justice that benefit workers, communities and countries — not just CWA members.

Morty Bahr stresses the risks and opportunities in the existing environment. Organizations like CWA and leaders like Morty Bahr help ensure that the risks are minimized, opportunities maximized and that the benefits and costs of change are equitably shared.

"From the Telegraph to the Internet" is an interesting and perceptive discussion of the CWA’s past and a blueprint for its future. It is my hope that this book will be widely read and that the labor movement and the country will benefit from its excellent analysis.